A window into my life as a 'disabled' single mom

Main menu

Post navigation

Blessing Blooms From ‘Bathroom Blunder’

I recently wrote about an incident which occurred at my daughter’s school titled, “School’s Inaccessibility Causes Bathroom Blunder.” In the two years my daughter has attended the school, it was the first time I found myself in a physically inaccessible situation. I was quite dismayed, to say the least. After the experience, I planned to contact the Headmaster and ask for a meeting. I intended to let him know how I’d felt and that I expected the necessary accommodations to be made to the bathroom by the end of the school year.

So, it was to my surprise (and delight) that I received an email from the Headmaster a week later. He acknowledged that I must have felt frustrated and embarrassed, apologized profusely and explained to me that the Director of Facilities had bought equipment and installed it in order to make the bathroom ADA compliant and fully accessible to people who use wheelchairs. He invited me to come look at the bathroom and let him know if it did indeed meet requirements necessary for someone to transfer over to the commode.

I stopped by the school earlier this week and was pleased that the stall divider between the accessible stall and the one beside it had been taken out and replaced with a thicker, sturdier divider. A horizontal transfer bar ran from behind the toilet to the side. (**Please see photos at bottom of article**) I went to the main office and the Headmaster came out to apologize again to me, this time in person. He commented that any time I see something that isn’t accessible or needs improvement, to please contact him so it can be dealt with immediately. I told him the only change in the bathroom I’d like to see at this point is a vertical bar above the horizontal one. For me, my upper body is regressing and I’m also a heavier person, so I grab onto both bars to transfer – it’s simply safer for me.

It’s important to me that people know how the school dealt with this situation. I didn’t have to say anything to them. The school took the initiative. They responded quickly and reached out to me, not only apologizing for my experience but inviting me to make sure they’d fixed the problem. This solidified my faith in this school. In a world where so often, the disability community must fight for rights, accommodations, etc., it’s nice and reassuring that there’s people and places that will act quickly and with compassion simply because it’s the right thing to do.